South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
fuel. The day was overcast, with occasional snowfalls, the temperature
+12° Fahr. The ice in our neighbourhood was quiet, but in the distance
pressure was at work. The wind freshened in the evening, and we ran a
wire-mooring astern. The barometer at 11 p.m. stood at 28.96, the
lowest since the gales of July. An uproar among the dogs attracted
attention late in the afternoon, and we found a 25-ft. whale cruising
up and down in our pool. It pushed its head up once in characteristic
killer fashion, but we judged from its small curved dorsal fin that it
was a specimen of _Balænoptera acutorostrata_, not _Orca gladiator_.
A strong south-westerly wind was blowing on October 20 and the pack was
working. The _Endurance_ was imprisoned securely in the pool, but our
chance might come at any time. Watches were set so as to be ready for
working ship. Wild and Hudson, Greenstreet and Cheetham, Worsley and
Crean, took the deck watches, and the Chief Engineer and Second
Engineer kept watch and watch with three of the A.B.’s for stokers. The
staff and the forward hands, with the exception of the cook, the
carpenter and his mate, were on “watch and watch”—that is, four hours
on deck and four hours below, or off duty. The carpenter was busy
making a light punt, which might prove useful in the navigation of
lanes and channels. At 11 a.m. we gave the engines a gentle trial turn
astern. Everything worked well after eight months of frozen inactivity,
except that the bilge-pump and the discharge proved to be frozen up;
they were cleared with some little difficulty. The engineer reported
that to get steam he had used one ton of coal, with wood-ashes and
blubber. The fires required to keep the boiler warm consumed one and a
quarter to one and a half hundred-weight of coal per day. We had about
fifty tons of coal remaining in the bunkers.
October 21 and 22 were days of low temperature, which caused the open
leads to freeze over. The pack was working, and ever and anon the roar
of pressure came to our ears. We waited for the next move of the
gigantic forces arrayed against us. The 23rd brought a strong
north-westerly wind, and the movement of the floes and pressure-ridges
became more formidable. Then on Sunday, October 24, there came what for
the _Endurance_ was the beginning of the end. The position was lat. 69°
11´ S., long. 51° 5´ W. We had now twenty-two and a half hours of
daylight, and throughout the day we watched the threatening advance of
the floes. At 6.45 p.m. the ship sustained heavy pressure in a
dangerous position. The attack of the ice is illustrated roughly in the
appended diagram. The shaded portions represent the pool, covered with
new ice that afforded no support to the ship, and the arrows indicate
the direction of the pressure exercised by the thick floes and
pressure-ridges. The onslaught was all but irresistible. The
_Endurance_ groaned and quivered as her starboard quarter was forced
against the floe, twisting the sternpost and starting the heads and
ends of planking. The ice had lateral as well as forward movement, and
the ship was twisted and actually bent by the stresses. She began to
leak dangerously at once.
I had the pumps rigged, got up steam, and started the bilge-pumps at 8
p.m. The pressure by that time had relaxed. The ship was making water
rapidly aft, and the carpenter set to work to make a coffer-dam astern
of the engines. All hands worked, watch and watch, throughout the
night, pumping ship and helping the carpenter. By morning the leak was
being kept in check. The carpenter and his assistants caulked the
coffer-dam with strips of blankets and nailed strips over the seams
wherever possible. The main or hand pump was frozen up and could not be
used at once. After it had been knocked out Worsley, Greenstreet, and
Hudson went down in the bunkers and cleared the ice from the bilges.
“This is not a pleasant job,” wrote Worsley. “We have to dig a hole
down through the coal while the beams and timbers groan and crack all
around us like pistol-shots. The darkness is almost complete, and we
mess about in the wet with half-frozen hands and try to keep the coal
from slipping back into the bilges. The men on deck pour buckets of
boiling water from the galley down the pipe as we prod and hammer from
below, and at last we get the pump clear, cover up the bilges to keep
the coal out, and rush on deck, very thankful to find ourselves safe
again in the open air.”
Monday, October 25, dawned cloudy and misty, with a minus temperature
and a strong south-easterly breeze. All hands were pumping at intervals
and assisting the carpenter with the coffer-dam. The leak was being
kept under fairly easily, but the outlook was bad. Heavy
pressure-ridges were forming in all directions, and though the
immediate pressure upon the ship was not severe, I realized that the
respite would not be prolonged. The pack within our range of vision was
being subjected to enormous compression, such as might be caused by
cyclonic winds, opposing ocean currents, or constriction in a channel
of some description. The pressure-ridges, massive and threatening,
testified to the overwhelming nature of the forces that were at work.
Huge blocks of ice, weighing many tons, were lifted into the air and
tossed aside as other masses rose beneath them. We were helpless
intruders in a strange world, our lives dependent upon the play of grim
elementary forces that made a mock of our puny efforts. I scarcely
dared hope now that the _Endurance_ would live, and throughout that
anxious day I reviewed again the plans made long before for the
sledging journey that we must make in the event of our having to take
to the ice. We were ready, as far as forethought could make us, for
every contingency. Stores, dogs, sledges, and equipment were ready to
be moved from the ship at a moment’s notice.
The following day brought bright clear weather, with a blue sky. The
sunshine was inspiriting. The roar of pressure could be heard all
around us. New ridges were rising, and I could see as the day wore on
that the lines of major disturbance were drawing nearer to the ship.
The _Endurance_ suffered some strains at intervals. Listening below, I
could hear the creaking and groaning of her timbers, the pistol-like
cracks that told of the starting of a trenail or plank, and the faint,
indefinable whispers of our ship’s distress. Overhead the sun shone
serenely; occasional fleecy clouds drifted before the southerly breeze,
and the light glinted and sparkled on the million facets of the new
pressure-ridges. The day passed slowly. At 7 p.m. very heavy pressure
developed, with twisting strains that racked the ship fore and aft. The
butts of planking were opened four and five inches on the starboard
side, and at the same time we could see from the bridge that the ship
was bending like a bow under titanic pressure. Almost like a living
creature, she resisted the forces that would crush her; but it was a
one-sided battle. Millions of tons of ice pressed inexorably upon the
little ship that had dared the challenge of the Antarctic. The
_Endurance_ was now leaking badly, and at 9 p.m. I gave the order to
lower boats, gear, provisions, and sledges to the floe, and move them
to the flat ice a little way from the ship. The working of the ice
closed the leaks slightly at midnight, but all hands were pumping all
night. A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor
penguins from a crack 100 yds. away at the moment when the pressure
upon the ship was at its climax. They walked a little way towards us,
halted, and after a few ordinary calls proceeded to utter weird cries
that sounded like a dirge for the ship. None of us had ever before
heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries,
and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling.
Then came a fateful day—Wednesday, October 27. The position was lat.
69° 5´ S., long. 51° 30´ W. The temperature was –8.5° Fahr., a gentle
southerly breeze was blowing and the sun shone in a clear sky.
“After long months of ceaseless anxiety and strain, after times when
hope beat high and times when the outlook was black indeed, the end of
the _Endurance_ has come. But though we have been compelled to abandon
the ship, which is crushed beyond all hope of ever being righted, we
are alive and well, and we have stores and equipment for the task that
lies before us. The task is to reach land with all the members of the
Expedition. It is hard to write what I feel. To a sailor his ship is
more than a floating home, and in the _Endurance_ I had centred
ambitions, hopes, and desires. Now, straining and groaning, her timbers
cracking and her wounds gaping, she is slowly giving up her sentient
life at the very outset of her career. She is crushed and abandoned
after drifting more than 570 miles in a north-westerly direction during
the 281 days since she became locked in the ice. The distance from the
point where she became beset to the place where she now rests mortally
hurt in the grip of the floes is 573 miles, but the total drift through
all observed positions has been 1186 miles, and probably we actually
covered more than 1500 miles. We are now 346 miles from Paulet Island,
the nearest point where there is any possibility of finding food and
shelter. A small hut built there by the Swedish expedition in 1902 is
filled with stores left by the Argentine relief ship. I know all about
those stores, for I purchased them in London on behalf of the Argentine
Government when they asked me to equip the relief expedition. The
distance to the nearest barrier west of us is about 180 miles, but a
party going there would still be about 360 miles from Paulet Island and
there would be no means of sustaining life on the barrier. We could not
take from here food enough for the whole journey; the weight would be
too great.
“This morning, our last on the ship, the weather was clear, with a
gentle south-south-easterly to south-south-westerly breeze. From the
crow’s-nest there was no sign of land of any sort. The pressure was
increasing steadily, and the passing hours brought no relief or respite
for the ship. The attack of the ice reached its climax at 4 p.m. The
ship was hove stern up by the pressure, and the driving floe, moving
laterally across the stern, split the rudder and tore out the
rudder-post and stern-post. Then, while we watched, the ice loosened
and the _Endurance_ sank a little. The decks were breaking upwards and
the water was pouring in below. Again the pressure began, and at 5 p.m.
I ordered all hands on to the ice. The twisting, grinding floes were
working their will at last on the ship. It was a sickening sensation to
feel the decks breaking up under one’s feet, the great beams bending
and then snapping with a noise like heavy gunfire. The water was
overmastering the pumps, and to avoid an explosion when it reached the
boilers I had to give orders for the fires to be drawn and the steam
let down. The plans for abandoning the ship in case of emergency had
been made well in advance, and men and dogs descended to the floe and
made their way to the comparative safety of an unbroken portion of the
floe without a hitch. Just before leaving, I looked down the
engine-room skylight as I stood on the quivering deck, and saw the
engines dropping sideways as the stays and bed-plates gave way. I
cannot describe the impression of relentless destruction that was
forced upon me as I looked down and around. The floes, with the force
of millions of tons of moving ice behind them, were simply annihilating
the ship.”